Coping With The Demands of Caring For Your Parents

There’s a certain role reversal that takes place, as your parents get older, as they go from being the caregiver to the care receiver. This can be a challenging emotional situation to manage, and practically speaking, you might feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders… as in addition to managing every other aspect of your busy life, you now need to arrange to care for your parents.

Whilst this comes from a place of love, and genuine desire to help, arranged aged care can feel like a burden that often needs to be outsourced to professionals – in part because they have the professional distance to not let their own emotions get in the way of providing the appropriate care.

The challenge with this, however, is that very few people want to end up in a residential care home, despite how wonderful the home might be – most elderly people want to remain in the comfort of their own home, as this gives them a sense of certainty and control which is important to most people.

This means you might need to look into getting carers to come into the home environment… and if you are tasked with finding the right people for the job, the pointers below are worth considering:

Check them out

You’ll want to ensure the carer you’re thinking of hiring has been fully vetted. You’ll want to ensure they have criminal records check along with references that are contactable – as it’s amazing how many people use fake references, for convenience, rather than being unscrupulous… but it’s important you get a holistic picture of the person entering your parents’ home, as they are in a position of great power with regard to the safety and security of your parents.

You’ll also want to check out their qualifications and make sure their training is relevant to your parent’s condition; as many times, someone that is trained as a generic carer, for instance, might not have the patience or skillset to deal with someone with dementia or alzheimers.

Reliability

Of course, you want the carer to be reliable, as this is a critical component of managing your parent’s ill health. You don’t want them missing medicine or being sat in an uncomfortable state, perhaps having been to the toilet, and for the carer to come in late.

A Good Fit

Finally, you’ll want to ensure there’s a good fit between the carer and your parent, as the relationship between them is relatively intimate and personal – meaning it’s helpful if they naturally get along. The most essential thing, however, is that there’s a sense of rapport and mutual respect between the parties.